On Time-Consistent Policy Rules for Heterogeneous Discounting Programs

Jean-Pierre Drugeon () and Bertrand Wigniolle
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Jean-Pierre Drugeon: Paris School of Economics, https://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/

Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne

Abstract: This article considers a new concept of social optimum for an economy populated by agents with heterogeneous discount factors. It is based upon an approach that constrains decision rules to be temporally consistent: these are stationary and unequivocally ruled by the state variable. For agents who differ only in their discount factors and have equal weights in the planner's objective, the temporally-consistent optimal solution produces identical consumption for the agents at all time periods. In the long run, the capital stock is determined by a modified golden rule that corresponds to an average-like summation of all discount factors. The general argument is illustrated by various two-agent examples that allow for an explicit determination of the temporally consistent decision rules. Interestingly, this temporally consistent solution can be simply recovered from the characterization of a social planner's problem with variable discounting and can also be decentralised as a competitive equilibrium through the use of various instruments

Keywords: Time-Consistent Policy Rules; heterogeneous Discounting Programs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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ftp://mse.univ-paris1.fr/pub/mse/CES2015/15082.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: On time-consistent policy rules for heterogeneous discounting programs (2016)
Working Paper: On time-consistent policy rules for heterogeneous discounting programs (2016)
Working Paper: On time-consistent policy rules for heterogeneous discounting programs (2016)
Working Paper: On time-consistent policy rules for heterogeneous discounting programs (2016)
Working Paper: On Time-Consistent Policy Rules for Heterogeneous Discounting Programs (2015)
Working Paper: On Time-Consistent Policy Rules for Heterogeneous Discounting Programs (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mse:cesdoc:15082

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